Sierra Jensen's blog

A common topic at any overseas retreat is check-ins, and often this involves a check on how our hearts heads bodies are doing. So I figured for this post I would do a bit of a reflection of how I'm doing in a heart-head-body kind of check-in.

Heart

I have learned a lot since arriving overseas relating to all kinds of topics; agriculture, development, water and sanitation, Zambian culture, government and a whole lot more. All of this has been really interesting, but the things that I have learned that have proved to be the most useful to me are the small trivial things of how to go about day-to-day life. The past two weekends, I've spent outside of town because of the Livingstone trip and going down to Lusaka this past weekend for the agriculture show.

I have to admit that I have been pretty sceptical of tourism. To me, going somewhere to see a few sights and eat a nice meal seems to miss the meat of the location. I really enjoy spending time getting to know people and understanding the way they live. Some tourist activities aim at this desire but often seem all too artificial. However, being in Zambia has made me realize the importance of a strong tourism industry... if done right.

It has been a while since I wrote about what is going on with my work at IDE so I thought that I should bring you up to date on what has been happening in the office in the past month.

Sugar Beans

Since joining EWB, I've heard a fair amount about this person named Dorothy. She's the person that we are supposed to be working for, our beneficiary. But who is she? That's a very good question...

One of the things that I always found to be a bit of a mystery before coming overseas is what exactly a day in the life of a JF is like. I understand that it is a difficult question to answer, every day is different in some way, but I want to try to give a bit of a picture of what a typical day looks like for me.

Culture is a pretty crazy thing, I'm sure that in my time here I will barely scratch the surface of what Zambian culture is all about (especially because there are so many differences between all of the tribes). You may be familiar with the iceberg model related to culture. Basically, just like only a small portion of an iceberg is easily visible and most is beneath the surface of the water, so is the majority of culture difficult to see on the surface. What is easily apparent are things like language, the way people dress, food, festivals etc.

I have just returned from the amazingness of an EWB retreat in Malawi. Last Wednesday I started off to Lusaka where I met up with the rest of the Zambian JFs. The next morning at 3:30am we woke up and made our way to the bus station to start our journey to Malawi. Along the way, we had some mechanical issues... we had been driving for a few hours, I was chatting with Tony beside me about books and movies and Vicki was half asleep on my other side when all of a sudden there was a huge bang and the bus started bumping around a lot more than usual.

A while back, I promised to give a more detailed description of what goes on at the field level of IDE in Kabwe. So far, I've been able to be a part of a bunch of different programs that are under way and I'll try to give a bit of a description of each.

Sugar beans

After spending a couple of weeks living with Bernard and his family in Kabwe, it was time to get a real village experience. With the help of my coworkers, I arranged with one of the farmers that IDE works with to stay with him and his family for a while. So on Saturday, I "shifted" (or moved) and am now living in a village just outside of Kabwe called Mukobeko with Mr. Nkhuwa and his family.

As with many households in the village, Mr. Nkhuwa's is quite big. There are about 10 family members living together here in a few small huts.